Resurrection: What Will It Be Like?

St. Paul states his case in stark terms in today’s epistle: “If Christ is not risen from the dead, our faith is in vain.” That doesn’t leave a lot of room for argument! But what is worth pondering is the nature of this thing we call resurrection. What exactly happened to Jesus on that Easter morning? What’s going to happen to us after we die? The shortest and most truthful answer is that we don’t precisely know.

But there are some things that we do know. Resurrection is not simply a return to the status quo ante, a kind of reconstitution of the parts of our bodies, something akin to adding water to a package of something. After his Resurrection, Jesus was no ghost. He could eat, and touch, and be touched, but he could also walk through doors without opening them. As you see, it gets more confusing the more we explore it.

Perhaps the best way to sum up what we know is to say that our risen state will be something entirely new, unlike anything we’ve seen or experienced before. Paul put it nicely in another passage, “Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” That was good enough for Paul. I suspect it will more than do for us. What we really need to worry about is getting there! God will handle the rest.